Bipartisan Senate group urges against international affairs cuts

Forty-three senators from both political parties have signed a letter urging against deep cuts to the U.S. international affairs budget, warning that a huge reduction in resources would harm national security.

“At a time when we face multiple national security challenges around the world, deep cuts in this area would be shortsighted, counterproductive and even dangerous,” the senators, led by Democratic Whip Richard Durbin and Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, wrote to budget and appropriations committee leaders in a letter dated Wednesday.

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The Trump administration has proposed huge cuts to the State Department and foreign aid programs in favor of so-called “hard power” measures, requesting that the Defense Department’s funding increase instead.

The senators acknowledged the goal was to “eliminate waste and inefficiency,” but they urged Congress to support “robust funding” for the international affairs budget in the 2018 fiscal year.

Most of the signatories were Democrats. Republicans who joined were North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson and Maine Sen. Susan Collins. (Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, also signed on.)

“Deep cuts to the International Affairs Budget would undermine our country’s economic and national security interests, as well as the humanitarian and democratic principles we support,” they wrote.